Collien Fernandes signs cease-and-desist toward 14-year-old daughter
The daughter's lawyers said Fernandes signed the declaration on 1 October, after she shared details of the girl's private life on Instagram. The move follows a public dispute with her ex-husband, actor Christian Ulmen.
A declaration for the 14-year-old
Collien Fernandes, actress and presenter, signed a strafbewehrte Unterlassungserklärung, a cease-and-desist declaration with penalties attached, toward her 14-year-old daughter on 1 October 2026. The girl's lawyers, Höch Rechtsanwälte, announced it on Wednesday, 7 October, and said Fernandes committed not to publish again certain circumstances from the daughter's private life. Before the declaration, Fernandes had shared such details with her followers on her Instagram channel, and the lawyers told RTL that this is now forbidden to her. Violations can trigger contractual penalties, as is usual for such declarations, according to Berliner Zeitung. The lawyers did not say which information was involved.
- Fernandes signs the cease-and-desist declaration toward her daughter
- The daughter's lawyers announce the declaration on Wednesday
- Fernandes says through her management she will not comment further
The lawyers said the daughter had repeatedly asked, in the past and most recently, that personal matters not become part of her mother's public accounts. They invoked the "highest conceivable protection of the general right of personality in Germany" that a minor enjoys, and said the declaration now finally respects that wish. The daughter lives with her father, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Years of allegations against Christian Ulmen
Fernandes has for some time publicly accused her ex-husband, the actor Christian Ulmen, in a case first reported by Der Spiegel. She accuses him of physical assaults and of creating fake profiles in her name, through which he allegedly spread pornographic depictions. The allegations do not involve deepfakes, according to the reporting. Berliner Zeitung wrote that she accuses him of running fake profiles across social networks and chat groups for years, and of distributing sexualised content, messages and phone sex as supposedly her. Ulmen is presumed innocent and denies the allegations about deepfakes and about spreading pornographic depictions through fake profiles. N-tv reported that the two are currently in legal proceedings against each other.
Fernandes responds and a broader debate
Her allegations triggered a broad debate on sexualised violence online and demonstrations in several German cities. On Thursday, Fernandes said through her management that she will not comment further for now. She criticised that lawyers' press releases were being used against her and that the public was being courted. Her statement reads in part as follows.
I still think this topic does not belong in the public sphere. That is why I will not comment further on it at present.
The statement was passed on by her management, and no further public comment from her was reported in the articles. Her criticism centres on the lawyers' press releases rather than on the content of the declaration.
A draft law in response
A draft by Federal Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD) would explicitly make "ansehensschädigende Kommunizieren unter einem Fake-Profil einer real existierenden Person" punishable, meaning communication under a fake profile of a real person that damages their reputation. The reporting presents the draft as presumably a response to the Ulmen and Fernandes case. It would also criminalise possession, production and distribution of rape videos. The measure is still a draft and has no force of law yet.
